Analytical Essay
To begin with, it was really surprising to find “A good man is hard to find” by Flannery O’Conner so deep, thoughtful and dramatic work. The genre of short stories always was known for its without parallel interpretive abilities. However, the read text is outstanding from other before met representatives of appropriate genre with incredible philosophic background. Several important topics are raised in it: The perception or role of a deity in the life of the speaker/protagonist; Divine justice; Good and evil and Salvation. According to prevailing opinion, the theme of Divine justice seems to be the center one, considering the key scene of Grandmother’s touch to Misfit (Hunter). However, one more topic also looks pretty interesting in the light of author’s message and story’s plot. There is the attempt to make analysis of “A good man is hard to find” by Flannery O’Conner from the point of view that thoughts about “death and immortality” contain the main meaning of read text. It is stated that the idea of both parties’ equal-right controversy is outlined by the author as the main message about death and immortality.
At first, let’s say that the entire plot involves more than the dozen of characters. However, there are two main ones that bring the philosophical shade to the story and bring so strong thoughtful meaning. There is the talk about “Grandmother” and “Misfit”. The first one is lady in age of pretty conservative views. She appears as rather religious person. As for her psychological portrait, The Grandmother is a bit cowardly, egoistic and contemptuous in some way person. Talking about her religiosity, she doesn’t look like real Christian in fact. She is more like the woman, who wants to be treated so by others. In other words, the Grandmother can be called the god-fearing human. However, the last scenes show her as the woman of real Christian values. The Misfit is absolutely contrary character to the first one. This is the criminal who escaped prison. He appears as confident, calm, authoritative person, who prefers to be direct always. In contrast to the Grandmother, the Misfit is absolutely God-fearless. He can be treated as the atheist actually, as some opposing to Christian religion thoughts and mood are pretty clear in his character. In addition, this character does not recognize cause-effect interconnection, claiming that not everyone is awarded according to merit: ”Jesus shown everything off balance. It was the same case with Him as with me except He hadn’t committed any crime and they could prove I had committed one because they had the papers on me. … I call myself The Misfit, because I can’t make what all I done wrong fit what all I gone through in punishment” (O’Conner). To sum up, two characters are opposing to each other, bringing the idea of death and immortality contrast as it is in Christian religion and atheistic study respectively.
The plot of the story tells us about the regular family that takes a car trip. The apogee begins just after the scene of a car accident, when traveling family meets The Misfit and his boys. From the start of narrative, the author shows all involved characters as people with different sorts of disadvantages, in respect to title of the story and outlined idea of difference between real Christianity and God-fear. The main events happen during Grandmother’s and Misfit’s conversation, while all members of family were killed one by one. The topic of Christianity and its values is placed into the center of discussion. In fact, the philosophic controversy and even conflict about religion unfolds between them, however, this fact is shown only by the meaning of said words, with Grandmother’s regular references to Jesus. As it was said at the beginning of this paper, the key scene and culmination of “A good man is hard to find” is grandmother’s just before death touch to Misfit’s shoulder: “She saw the man’s face twisted close to her own as if he were going to cry and she murmured, “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children !” She reached out and touched him on the shoulder. The Misfit sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times through the chest”(O’Conner). Summing up, the Flannery O’Conner placed incredibly strong end phrases: “She would of been a good woman, if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life. …It’s no real pleasure in life”(O’Conner).
Talking about the author’s style of writing, we are able to call it pretty interesting and holistic. Seemingly, it was entirely used to point out the idea of philosophic controversy. The language of story can be called informal one, making the events maximally close to our everyday life. The mood of writing can is pretty depressive, to bring the message of topic seriousness probably. As for the atmosphere, it looks incredibly tense. In addition, it should be stressed that symbols and elements used in story ought to be well appreciated with their interpretive meaning. The nice example is the symbol of “no cloud no sun” sky. This symbol is strong to say that there is no answer about central controversy of story – what is wright Christianity or atheism. It just stresses the conflict between to beliefs, stating that answer to this question hardly can be found ever.
Now, let’s pay attention to picked topic of this paper – Death and Immortality. As any other from the list, it is derivative from religious and atheistic controversy as the key theme of work. To make some interpretations, the brief background is needful. It is well known fact that Christianity proclaims immortality as the nature of soul existence. According to this philosophy, everyone awarder according to his merit. Thereby, Christian religion contains the well-known division to heaven and hell. This part of Christianity is the key point of God-fear to people (Haynes). Drawing the lines between immortality and death, the author uses The grandmother on the side of the first party – not real Christian, cowardly person of fake virtue. In fact, this is the general picture of modern person, who does not correspond Christian requirements, but still is featured as God-feared. In its turn, the character of Misfit is used to take the opposing side. Talking about his part, there is the need to place the quote words from Glen Mayre’s article: “Those beings whom history and tradition place as teachers of mankind showed by their lives and precepts that they knew something about Death. Among all those recognized as superior if not great souls there is no record of one fearing Death; on the contrary, they looked upon it as an old friend. One is almost forced to the conclusion that death to them occupied the same relative status as an exit for an actor. On the stage acting his part, he knows definitely that he existed in quite other circumstances before he took his cue and entered the play. When his duty is finished he steps out of one scene into another…. For when there arises a Confucius, a Buddha, a Jesus, a Plato, an Apollonius of Tyana, or an H. P. Blavatsky to give, by their life, knowledge, and power over the forces of nature, living proof that man is a God, we refuse even to exercise the thought and common sense of everyday life, and gladly accept the freedom from responsibility offered by religion, namely, that the Great Soul is a special creation, endowed with the attributes of Divinity”(Mayre). To be pretty clear and brief, the belief in immortality generates restricted thinking, deny of everyday life and freedom refusal according to philosopher. The character of Misfit is totally contrary to these lines of behavior and thinking: “Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead, and He shouldn’t have done it. He shown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it’s nothing for you to do but thow away everything and follow Him, and if He didn’t, then it’s nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness” (O’Conner). This quote is useful to show god-fearless nature of character, and derivative disbelief in immortality.
“A good man is hard to find” by Flannery O’Conner does not allow reader to find what the author consider to be the wright ideas about death or immortality. In contrast to incredibly strong and pretty clear controversy, his own views can be treated differently. On the one hand, there is the scene of divine mercy to cruel murderer from his victim. On the other hand, the entire plot, not very attractive character of Grandmother and strong last phrases allows readers to make other conclusions. As it was stated in the introduction, the main idea of story determined by religious and atheistic controversy. Flannery O’Conner does not answer any questions. He wrote the story about two sides of the same coin, considering that both of them have the right to exist. Seemingly, this is the main view of Flannery O’Conner to Death and Immortality. Constant controversy will always occupy humans mind, but not any of us are able to show and explain it as it was done in “A good man is hard to find”.
